On the table lay a tattered diary in a leather cover and a rusty silver dagger with an engraving,a cross and an inscription in Latin: "In umbris pugnamus".
Flash approached first, took the dagger, examined the blade in the red light.
"Someone was here recently.
A month ago, maybe two. The traces are fresh, the silver is real, that surprises me…"
Ethan took the diary, opened it to a random page. The handwriting was uneven, hurried, the ink smeared in places as if written with a trembling hand.
"…They don't die of hunger. They die of rage. One of them devoured my partner. I hid the evidence in the bunker under the bridge. If you find this, run."
"They smell fear, the only thing you can do is run and never look back…"
Ethan felt his throat tighten.
"This… sounds like Maria's words. Was she here? Or someone who thought like her?"
"This… looks like Maria, the same style. Maybe she was here."
Flash took the diary, flipped through several pages, his eyes racing over the lines.
"Not her."
"But someone who knew her."
"Look at the date, three months ago. Plus someone left a name here."
"R.N. So she wasn't alone. Someone else was digging under Corvin."
"And that someone left us a gift. The records match the data on the flash drive. This is the confirmation."
He lifted the dagger, weighed it in his hand.
"Good silver. I'll take it with me. Might even save a life."
Bruno nodded, putting the dagger into the backpack.
"Useful. If a wendigo shows up, it'll come in handy."
Gideon, leaning against a column, said quietly:
"Flash… you mentioned Isabelle. What happened after? How did you get out?"
Flash froze, the dagger in his hand glinted.
"After?"
"I sat there, in the hall, with her body for a whole hour. Maybe two. Waiting for the wendigo to come back.
But it didn't return. I buried her right there, covered her with debris. And then I climbed back up."
"Corvin and his clan, they created this.
Their experiments, their blood. The wendigos are their mistake. And I will do everything so that there are no more of them…"
"Thank you for telling us," Ethan said.
"This… helps."
Flash gave a short nod.
They moved on.
The tunnel narrowed, then widened again. The smell grew stronger, sweetish-rotten, like old blood mixed with decaying flesh.
Pulya growled quietly but didn't stop. Ethan noticed how she pressed her ears back, sniffing the air more frequently.
Flash walked in silence, but Ethan could see how tense his shoulders were, how his fingers kept clenching on the knife handle.
"Flash," Ethan called quietly.
"You okay?"
Flash didn't turn, but answered.
"No. But that doesn't matter."
They entered a large vaulted hall with columns. In the center,a metal door, once welded shut, now slightly ajar.
On the floor, claw marks, deep furrows in the concrete.
Flash stopped.
"The bunker. We're here."
Ethan felt his heart pound even harder at the sight of the scratches.
"And now what?"
Flash drew the silver dagger, tested the blade with his finger.
"Now we go in."
Flash pushed the metal door with his shoulder. The rusted hinges screeched like the cry of a wounded beast, the sound echoing through the hall.
The door didn't give way easily, he had to lean in with all his weight, and when it finally opened, a smell poured inside: decaying flesh mixed with something sour, like old blood blended with rust and mold.
Ethan's red flashlight beam fell inside, pulling out of the darkness outlines, shelves piled with boxes, hard drives and test tubes, a long laboratory table covered in a layer of dust, several old monitors with cracked screens, an overturned chair, and on the floor, claw marks, deep ones, as though someone had tried to claw their way out from the inside, scratching the concrete down to the rebar.
But inside it was quiet.
Too quiet.
Pulya entered first, pressed herself to the ground, ears flattened, tail down. She didn't growl, only breathed quietly, almost soundlessly, sniffing the air, her nostrils flaring.
Flash stepped in after her, knife in his right hand, left hand extended forward as though he could feel the threat with his skin. He moved slowly, every step a check, every breath an assessment.
"Clear," he whispered, voice barely audible. "Clear for now. But the smell… fresh."
"Someone was here recently."
Bruno helped Gideon enter.
He leaned against the wall, breathing heavy and labored, he didn't want to be a burden, didn't want to be left behind.
Gideon took a step forward, winced from the pain in his chest where the bandages were already lightly soaked with serous fluid.
"If the archives are here…" he rasped, "we take everything.
And we leave. I'm not staying here to die in this godforsaken place…"
Ethan entered last.
The door behind him closed with a heavy clang, the electromagnetic lock clicked automatically, cutting them off from the tunnel.
The sound echoed through the hall, and Ethan felt his heart hammering in his throat, pulsing in his temples.
"Damn it, Ethan! What the hell?" Flash snapped, turning to Ethan along with the others.
"Sorry, it closed on its own…" Ethan lowered his head guiltily.
"We're inside, under the Brooklyn Bridge. Maybe Maria was here."
"Or someone who knew her. But why is it so quiet? Why isn't there a single sound?"
He took a step forward, the flashlight trembling in his hand, the red beam darting across the walls, catching details, cobwebs in the corners, empty test tubes, a shattered monitor on which a faint inscription still glowed:
"System files."
Flash quickly walked to the main table, turned on one of the old monitors with a cracked screen. It flickered to life with a dim green glow.
On it, a list of files, dated across different years, some encrypted, some open.
Flash scrolled through the list with his finger on the touchpad.